Weather, Hurricanes | featured news

The 2012 hurricane season has come to an end and it's another one for the record books, above and beyond the destruction of Sandy. There were 19 named storms in what meteorologists consider an above-average year that tied as being the third most-active season since 1851. The season runs from June 1st to November 30th, although tropical storms can and do sometimes develop outside those dates.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency offers tips on how to prepare for Hurricane Sandy and other tropical storms. Sandy is expected to be especially disastrous when it merges with a winter storm system, bringing powerful winds, rain, snow and storm surge along the Eastern Seaboard.

The pre-Halloween hybrid weather monster that federal forecasters call "Frankenstorm" is looking more ominous by the hour for the East Coast, and utilities and local governments are getting ready....

Tropical Storm Sandy, which formed in the western Caribbean Sea late Monday, is expected to become a hurricane on Wednesday as it approaches Jamaica, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm was centered about 275 miles south-southwest of Kingston, Jamaica, and had top sustained winds of 50 miles per hour, the center said in an afternoon advisory.

Isaac was on the verge of ballooning into a hurricane Tuesday that could flood the coasts of four states with storm surge and heavy rains on its way to New Orleans, where residents hunkered down behind levees fortified after Katrina struck seven years ago this week.

The head of the federal disaster assistance agency says recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Irene will proceed regardless of a dwindling emergency fund.

As the Passaic River in New Jersey threatened to crest to dangerously high levels Tuesday, residents continued to battle the floodwaters that have forced thousands of people to relocate, authorities said.

Hurricane Irene could cost U.S. state and local governments billions of dollars in damages, but funds from the federal government might ultimately cover much of this expense.

"The Help" remained Hollywood's top draw with $14.3 million on a slow late-summer weekend whose business was even more sluggish as many East Coast theaters closed to ride out the storm there....

Hurricane Irene became a tropical storm Sunday as it made landfall in New York City, sending the sea across the Coney Island boardwalk and rapids running down some low-lying streets in Manhattan and other boroughs.